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Worcester Easter Market part 2

Welcome again!

Worcester Easter Festival is just two days away now and we are very, very excited. Two-day markets always mean hard work, but we are extremely happy to see our usual customers return to our stall. We are also pleased to meet new people as well. We hope to be excused if we sound like doors to the crypt by the end of the day. High Street is fully packed every weekend and Easter time shopping spree could be twice as busy. After speaking to several hundred people, your voice refuses to work and there is nothing we can do about it!

Today, we would like to present our favorite framed pieces. They come in different sizes and shapes and are worth taking a closer look as they can be quite detailed. Rita has chosen 5 large pictures and she hopes you will enjoy looking at them as much as she enjoyed making them.

01. “A lot of blooming fun”

Malicia came up with this very cheeky title after Rita ran out of ideas. Originally it was entitled “Whatever” as this was Rita’s reply when Mal asked her how this artwork should be named. Luckily, a nicer title was quickly found and we don’t have to be ashamed inviting you to look at art pieces knows as “Whatever1” and “Whatever2”. A lot of blooming fun sounds so much better!

Cutting the flowers was a real nightmare for Rita and it took forever to do it. She has worked with brand new materials she has never used before and the experience was not a nice one. The artistic metal foil sheets are not only very thick and you need to apply a great amount of strength for them to go through the Sizzix machine, their edges are also sharp as knives and you have to be careful when you are using them. One composition took about 6 hours from the beginning to finish

A lot of blooming fun

A lot of blooming fun – flower close up

02.”A lot of blooming fun part 2″

Rita has a strange habit of creating another similar artwork if she had problem with the first one. Even she is not sure where this very unusual desire streams from. Maybe it is the need of mastering an unknown medium/materials or she simply like to torment herself. Anyway, she decided to create “A lot of blooming fun part 2” and she had another 6 hours of pure physical and mental torture. At times she was close to tearing both picture to pieces but her fingertips were so bloodied and bruised that she had problems with keeping anything in her hands!

It is worth mentioning that she is very proud of the Japanese vibe both picture have but generally speaking, making them was a tiny bit of a hell on Earth for her.

A lot of blooming fun 2

A lot of blooming fun 2 – flower details

03. “Portraits”

We didn’t plan to make this artwork as its frame has been originally purchased for another picture. After it proved to be too shallow, we decided to create a unique work to fill it. Rita found a matching mount in her friend’s art gallery and Malicia provided her with an idea and materials (decorative paper and small wooden frames purchased on Malta). To fill all 5 places on the mount, Rita had to make 5 separate artworks and attach them one by one to the base. It took her five consecutive evenings but the overall effect is worth every effort

Portraits number 2

Please take a look at close up photographs taken by Malicia. Each cat is different and you will not find two identical ones

Portraits – kitten number 1 close up

Portraits – kitten number 2 close up

Portraits – kitten number 3 close up

Portraits – kitten number 4 close up

Portraits – kitten number 5 close up

04. “All together now part 1”

As with “Portraits”, “All together now” started with a frame. While shopping for other items, we found two lovely frames, slightly damaged and ready to be thrown away. We spoke to the store managers and we were allowed to purchase them at half of their price. This is a sad reality we live in. Perfectly good items are being removed from the stock just because they are imperfect – in majority of cases “the damage” is just a scratch, a dent or a broken frame clip! Those items are very rarely available to be purchased; bigger stores purposely make it harder for customers to buy them. It seems it is easier for stores to discard the faulty items than to move them to the “Reduce to clear” section. When Rita questioned one of the managers why they do it as such practices contribute to bigger waste, he just shrugged and hid himself behind company’s policies.

We are big advocated that such policies should have no place in our modern societies. There is no shame is displaying slightly damaged goods with reduced prices. People are very good with tools and you don’t need any special skills to fix tiny things. It took Rita about 10 minutes to re-attach the clips to the frames using tiny screws and a screwdriver. Hardly any work! We are on the right way, however. Supermarkets in Italy and France are no longer able to throw away food; it has to be given to shelters and food banks. A time will come when big department stores will be forced to stop throwing slightly damaged household items just because they do not fit their marketing or aesthetic visions. Maybe they can be given away to those who are in need of them but cannot afford to pay full prices?

Excuse this rant, but sustainability and improved way of life are very close to our hearts. The Cat Shop is using recyclable materials to turn trash into treasures and we cannot stand still when things like that happen in from of us. Anyway, as you can see, the fixed frame looks fantastic, you will not be able to tell it was broken at some point!

All together now #1

Close ups of each kitten:

All Together Now #1 – upper panel detail

All Together Now #1 – middle panel detail

All Together Now #1 – lower panel detail

05. “All together now part 2”

All together now part 2 is very similar to the first one. Each kitten on the three window panel is of course different, but the frame is identical, except for the colour (white). Rita has fixed the broken clip using exactly the same method as before and both pictures can be displayed next to each other. We are truly proud how both of them turned out!